Wesley
by Gypsy Love
Summary: Some Wil Wheaton thoughts when he did "fun with flags" with Sheldon and Amy.
1. Chapter 1

I watched them, sitting on the couch next to Sheldon Cooper. I knew enough of things to know that his girlfriend was getting mad, and that she was a bit of a bitch. I didn't really mind that she was criticizing me. I didn't like it, but I didn't care. I knew things about acting that she never would, I knew what a bitch it was. Well, it was like anything else, I supposed. It was like those things that you could love when you were young and then you realized that there were people, and groups of people, and an entire industry just ready to suck all the fun out of it. By this time I didn't give a shit, really. Had I wanted to be the next Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt? At one time, yeah. But now I knew better. I knew it was a bunch of games, and power plays, and who knew who. Fuck it. This was just a little silly web show, and I was only here because Sheldon Cooper invited me. Amy could go screw.

Sheldon Cooper. He was a funny guy. I first came across him at that Lords of Ka'ah tournament that Stuart wanted me to go to. I liked that game, and all games like it, Magic and Dungeons and Dragons, all of that. I guess it was just the unabashed nerd in me. I mean, I was in _Star Trek_ for God's sake. If that wasn't nerd cred I didn't know what was. And then there's this guy, and Stuart kind of warned me about him. He said there was gonna be this guy there, Sheldon Cooper. And I said, so? And he said, he's a real genius, I mean like serious beautiful mind shit, his I.Q. is close to Einstein's or something and he works at a university and he's crazy smart. And I said, so he's gonna win? And Stuart said, yeah, but that's not it. Then what's it, I said. And he said, he hates you , man. He has this enemy list and you're on it. And I was all like, why?

I couldn't stop thinking about this. A genius, a serious NASA brainiac genius hated me? I'd never even met the guy. Did he not like _Star Trek_ or something? I didn't like to be hated. I understood a certain type of dislike that was the darker side of fame, especially since the internet. If you're even half way famous do not google yourself, I mean it, the things people say. But there is more good than bad, there always is. There are people out there in love with Wesley and in love with Gordie and who are sort of in love with me as a sort of surrogate for these characters. But now I knew there was a person who I was going to see who hated me. I cringed, the thin skinned child performer that I used to be, eager to please, didn't like this idea.

He was smart, alright. I remembered that tournament at the comic book store, and as I played my games I overheard him playing his, and he knew every card before it was played by some Rainman counting cards shit, and I knew I would lose for sure against such an intellect.

At the table with him he played every card like it was some vendetta against me, but I couldn't help staring at those large blue eyes that were glaring back at me. I couldn't help noticing the way his slender fingers held the cards. I had only one chance, and I was lucky that it worked. Stuart had told me that he was somewhat immune to sarcasm and facial expressions and that he was ritualistic, that he came into the store at the same time every week. That knowledge, combined with my first hand view of his savant skills at cards lead me to believe that this genius may actually be a savant, and if that was the case, they had their weaknesses. I knew. Savants lacked common sense, and cunning. I'd been an actor in Hollywood for years, the cutthroat and subtle social cue capital of the world. Sheldon Cooper's I.Q. might be higher than mine, but there was more to this life than the little circles on those standardized tests. I'd beat him, just like I beat out all those kids vying to play Gordie in _Stand By Me_. I beat those kids because I understood exactly what was wanted for that role, and what wasn't. I could beat Sheldon at this card game, if I could find his weakness.

I thought of all of that as I sat on the couch and watched Amy get mad at Sheldon, and I watched Sheldon be oblivious to it. They were talking privately, and I could almost make out what they were saying. She basically wanted him to tell me off, but he wouldn't, because he didn't want to. And I could see everything he couldn't see. I wouldn't really care if he told me off just to please her, because sometimes you had to do that to please the women in your life. He was gonna piss her off and it would be nothing to me, and he'd have a whole fight to go through and all of that pleading and trying to please her retroactively. It would be so much easier to tell me off now and get it over with, but I was starting to see that these geniuses, mostly Sheldon but also Leonard and Howard and Raj, they didn't often take the smarter and easier way out of things.


	2. Chapter 2

I had gone home, laughing to myself about Sheldon's predicament, a predicament he probably wasn't even aware of. But he would be. With girlfriends, especially ones of the bitch variety, sooner or later you would always be aware.

At my house, the night kind of pressing against the windows, I ate a frozen dinner barely microwaved to unthawedness in front of the T.V. In some ways I was jealous of Sheldon, in many ways actually. I was jealous of his I.Q. even though I knew it didn't translate everywhere. But that didn't matter. People heard that high number, they heard his name in the same sentence as Einstein, they saw the string of degrees and it kind of inspired awe. Did knowing where people's weaknesses were and pouncing ever produce awe? I mean, it happened to me. I saw that Rainman shit he was doing at the Lords of Ka'ah tournament and I was impressed. Impressed and inspired to beat him, but still impressed.

But it was even more than that. I was jealous that he knew what he wanted to do, he knew he wanted to solve freaky theoretical equations. I was jealous that he did that, that he went to that university every day and worked out whatever it was, I didn't even know what it was, but he knew quantum physics stuff I would never be able to fathom. I also knew what I was doing, still chasing some crazy dream of acting from when I was a kid. Being in a huge block buster movie didn't help, or maybe it helped, and I knew it was way more than most people ever got, but it kind of screwed up my head. Looking back on it, I knew that movie's success wasn't solely due to me. I'd read the story that _Stand By Me_ was based on and it was amazing, and the director, man, he knew just what chords to strike, and the photography of the whole thing, I knew there were a lot of parts that made that movie so successful and that I was a little part. Maybe I had wanted to be a little part of something great again, but shit was few and far between lately, and there were just so many starving little pretty boy actors that I found it, well, tricky.

I tossed the soggy cardboard paper remains of my meal into the trash and sat back to watch T.V. and drink beer. I'd just taken my first long swallow when I heard frantic knocking at my door and my full name repeated twice. Odd. When I opened the door I saw Sheldon Cooper standing there, one eye nearly shut and the other eye struggling to focus on me. I could smell the fumes of a pretty strong drink coming off of him, Harvey Wallbanger or Long Island Iced Tea.

"Sheldon, what are you doing here?" I said, smiling. He was taller than me but he was hunched over, trying to keep his balance and mostly succeeding. He did stumble back once or twice.

"It was twice," he said, which I didn't understand, and then he banged his open hand on the door frame and said my name again. Actually I didn't understand any of this. I noticed how thin he was, how his clothes nearly hung off of him. I used to be thin. I was one of those skinny skeletal kids who ate whatever they wanted and didn't gain a pound. Now that wasn't so much the case, especially with my steady diet of pizza, fried foods, and beer. Someday I'd start eating all raw food and going to the gym twice a day and I'd land some part ear marked for Brad Pitt. Sure I would.

I looked at him questioningly. I couldn't help but like the guy. I mean, photographic memory, limited to non-existent social skills, an enemies list, of all things? Sometimes I thought I was almost drawn to him because he was so different from me. He wouldn't know the first thing about sucking around the gutters and the auditions of Hollywood. I wouldn't know the first thing about having some higher goal outside of myself and my own success, my own recognition.

"I'm from Texas," he said, staggering but managing to right himself, holding onto my porch railing for support, "need I say more?"

"Yeah, a little more would be helpful," I said, laughing inside. I knew why he was here even before he spilled it. He was defending Amy's honor, like an ernest but clueless seventh grade nerd.

He held his fists up but he could barely stand, and I could pummel him in a fight. I outweighed him, and part of being such a street smart and conniving actor included being able to defend myself. There were more fight scenes than you might imagine in_ Star Trek_.

Once we patched it up and I got him to realize that we weren't going to fight, and that I was sorry about Amy, he was still drunk. He took a step backwards and leaned against the house, and just looking at him I could feel how sick he was feeling. He looked nauseas and green, and I knew by that one squinted eye that everything was doubled on him and things were spinning.

"Are you okay?" I said, but I knew he wasn't.

"You ask a lot of questions, Wil Wheaton," he said, and then he said something about vomiting and he leaned over the railing and he must have puked up everything he had eaten all day. I heard it splash into the bushes, and I heard that violent retch as his stomach expelled all of its contents.

"You were so good in _Stand By Me_," he said, then doubled over again. I stood on my porch, feeling the cool night air against my cheek, listening to my new strange genius friend puke over the side of my railing, and I felt what I usually feel when someone says something like that. I felt a funny kind of emptiness. What was it? I was good in that movie, but? But I was so much younger, and in a lot of ways the Wil Wheaton in that movie had little to do with the Wil Wheaton who skulked around Hollywood and went to a few auditions and read a few scripts but mostly watched T.V. alone.

He was done, finally, but still leaned over the railing like he was on a ship that was rocking with 16 foot waves.

"Sheldon, c'mon," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He straightened up and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket.

"Sorry," he said, his eyes watering, but at least he had lost the look of acute vertigo and his balance was better. A good puking can make you feel better, I knew.

"C'mon, come inside," I said, putting my arm around him, feeling his slender arm under my hand.

"No, I should go..." he said.

"No. Come in. You're drunk and sick, just, you can sleep it off in here," I said, suddenly wanting him to stay.


End file.
